[Dr. Eugene Felikson]

But apart from being Jay-Z's calling card... isn't Jigga also a play on the slur, Jigaboo?

[Severian]

Originally Posted by Dr. Eugene Felikson

But apart from being Jay-Z's calling card... isn't Jigga also a play on the slur, Jigaboo?

Yeah, I think so. I don’t know.

Can’t imagibe a time I’d think to using it when not talking about Jay-Z though. Even then, I don’t use it because it’s stupid.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

I'm the opposite.. as time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to enjoy non hip hop, even bands I admired like Dinosaur Jr and the likes. Been listening to tons of Mobb Deep.


Honestly I just got used to say "Jigga" wherever there is an N word.

Yeah, guitar rock is hard to fuck with when nobody’s doing it worth a shit in any new or inventive ways.

Electronic music is shitfucktons of fun though, and when it overlaps with hip-hop, that’s good stuff. Also when hip-hop overlaps with rock, like on Kids See Ghosts and Young Fathers’ “Cocoa Sugar” (which you REALLY should listen to if you haven’t, because holy fuuuuuck)... that’s exciting.

But looking at my albums of the year from the past decade, we have exactly ONE rock-type album and that’s Swans’ “The Seer” from 2012. Everything else has been hip-hop or electronic (except maybe 2011... might have put Women at the top that year... not sure. Subject to constant change anyway).


LISTEN TO YOUNG FATHERS

[louder]

Originally Posted by Dr. Eugene Felikson

But apart from being Jay-Z's calling card... isn't Jigga also a play on the slur, Jigaboo?

Damn, it seems that no word is safe huh. Honestly thought of it as a play on the word jiggy, you know, like that Will Smith song.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

Yeah, guitar rock is hard to fuck with when nobody’s doing it worth a shit in any new or inventive ways.

Electronic music is shitfucktons of fun though, and when it overlaps with hip-hop, that’s good stuff. Also when hip-hop overlaps with rock, like on Kids See Ghosts and Young Fathers’ “Cocoa Sugar” (which you REALLY should listen to if you haven’t, because holy fuuuuuck)... that’s exciting.

But looking at my albums of the year from the past decade, we have exactly ONE rock-type album and that’s Swans’ “The Seer” from 2012. Everything else has been hip-hop or electronic (except maybe 2011... might have put Women at the top that year... not sure. Subject to constant change anyway).


LISTEN TO YOUNG FATHERS

Woah.. okay, I will. But when are you gonna hear the Saba album, "CARE FOR ME"?


I read a recent interview with Raekwon where he says that most popular music today is just straight party, party, party shit and what music misses the most compared to the old days is the diversity. I thought he pretty much nailed it. He also threw shade at Drake by saying that the radio plays the same fucking guy over and over again.


I am annoyed by mainstream hip hop as well. Everyone is overtly happy all the time. It's the same facade you can find on social media. I miss the griminess, the realism. Perfection is just boring.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

Woah.. okay, I will. But when are you gonna hear the Saba album, "CARE FOR ME"?


I read a recent interview with Raekwon where he says that most popular music today is just straight party, party, party shit and what music misses the most compared to the old days is the diversity. I thought he pretty much nailed it. He also threw shade at Drake by saying that the radio plays the same fucking guy over and over again.


I am annoyed by mainstream hip hop as well. Everyone is overtly happy all the time. It's the same facade you can find on social media. I miss the griminess, the realism. Perfection is just boring.

Oh I forgot to tell you I did listen to that almost immediately after you told me to and... I was not blown away. (Shrug)

Young Fathers isn’t really hip-hop anymore; it’s like experimental avant hip-hop- and grime-adjacent music with these big sweeping melodies and intense rock and electronic embellishments.

Honestly, their album feels a bit like Kids See Ghosts. Like it might exist in the same dimension. Only I think it’s possibly better. It’s certainly more than 23 minutes, so that works in its favor.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

Oh I forgot to tell you I did listen to that almost immediately after you told me to and... I was not blown away. (Shrug)

Young Fathers isn’t really hip-hop anymore; it’s like experimental avant hip-hop- and grime-adjacent music with these big sweeping melodies and intense rock and electronic embellishments.

Honestly, their album feels a bit like Kids See Ghosts. Like it might exist in the same dimension. Only I think it’s possibly better. It’s certainly more than 23 minutes, so that works in its favor.

Interesting.. surprised you didn't like Saba though. I think his flow, lyrics and production are far above the majority of rappers. Sort of like a Kendrick X Chance hybrid, in a good way. Maybe you should give him another chance.

[louder]

By the way, don't get me started on rappers copying/recycling the same sounds and flows, not to mention topics and rhymes. "Bitch/shit/dick". It's just so lazy, repetitive and uninspired.

[louder]

CARE FOR ME is probably my favorite album of 2018..


The paranoid banger that is "Life". M.a.a.d city vibes.

Saba's virtuosic yet effortless flow on "Calligraphy".

The beautiful and touching "Heaven All Around Me".


So many great moments. I feel that it's the album I always wanted Chance to make.

[louder]

1. Saba - Care for Me
2. Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts
3. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs
4. Anderson .Paak - Oxnard
5. Curren$y, Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Fetti
6. Pusha T - Daytona
7. Travis Scott - AstroWorld
8. Noname - Room 25
9. Kanye West - Ye / Nas - Nasir
10. Kendrick Lamar & Various Artists - Black Panther Soundtrack

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

1. Saba - Care for Me
2. Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts
3. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs
4. Anderson .Paak - Oxnard
5. Curren$y, Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Fetti
6. Pusha T - Daytona
7. Travis Scott - AstroWorld
8. Noname - Room 25
9. Kanye West - Ye / Nas - Nasir
10. Kendrick Lamar & Various Artists - Black Panther Soundtrack

Bro, has Kanye ever been so low on a list of yours?

Not me. But I get it. This year — for all its Kanye releases — was THE FUCKING WORST for Kanye fans, and some of that definitely rubbed off on how I listened to his albums, specifically Ye. And it’s acrually not a bad record. It’s reallt not. But he came out and confessed to not writing one of the songs, and that leaves about 12 minutes of pure Kanye this year. In some ways, we got more Kanye in 2014, when he didn’t release an album bit dropped theee excellent standalone singles.

Here’s my feeling on the whole thing...

He should have ONLY released the KSG album this year, and KSG should have had “Ghost Town” on it. That would have made for a fuller sounding SINGLE release that wasn’t a DIRECT Kanye album but more of a lower-profile “Watch the Thrnbe” kind of deal. So it wouldn’t have fucked with his winning streak of solo albums, but his name still would have been put there.

Yep. Release a longer KSG, don’t release Ye, just release its best songs (“I Thoight Avoit Killing You,” “No Mistakes,” maybe “Wouldn’t Leave”) as standalone singles and have this be an off-year for his solo work.

OH and ALSO... I would have GREATLY preferred that he NOT have done all the fucking stupid, heartbreaking bullshit he said and did this year. For the love of FUCK, man. Fuck!

[Severian]

His album still knocked the shit out of Nas’ though.

Nas brought his B-game to that thing, for sure. Now I know he’s a weird anti-vaccer though, so that’s useful information.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

His album still knocked the shit out of Nas’ though.

Nas brought his B-game to that thing, for sure. Now I know he’s a weird anti-vaccer though, so that’s useful information.

But you're forgetting that Kanye produced the whole Nas thing.. the way I see it, it's just a Kanye beat/leftover tape with Nas cruising on autopilot throughout the whole thing. On "Cops Shot the Kid", "Bonjour" and "White Label" his presence is lazy and uninspired so I just tune him out.

[louder]

DJBooth names Saba's "Care for Me" best hip-hop/R&B AOTY

https://djbooth.net/features/2018-12...ms-2018-ranked


Saba wrote through tragedy, and he wrote his way to producing the best album of 2018. Every single bar on CARE FOR ME is haunting, but not mired in loss and death. Saba somehow took it upon himself to transfer the looming cloud of grief into song. The “Write it away, write it away” chants on “CALLIGRAPHY” follow me throughout the day, just as the jazz breakdown on “GREY” fills my head when my mood shifts out of my control. What Saba accomplishes on CARE FOR ME, without a major label budget and somehow with a smile, is beyond admirable. He established himself in the upper echelon of upcoming artists. The musicality, storytelling, and gut-wrenching soul that propels this album was matched by few others in recent memory. Saba showcases his heart as a bleeding organ, and he somehow makes the guts of loss beautiful.

CARE FOR ME is an affecting and defining moment for Chicago and for all of hip-hop. Saba’s heart took shape after shape across 10 airtight tracks, proving that hip-hop is a limitless avenue of expression, and is not too macho for mourning and not too macho to take responsibility for the fallout that comes with using, depression, and void-filling sex. In 2016, Saba was a young man with a dream and his boyish Bucket List Project felt endless in its optimism. In 2018, Saba became a man marked by loss, but he did not let that cavernous pain root him in place. He grew—hand over hand—and gave us a living portrait of his overcoming. CARE FOR ME ends with John Walt in heaven, and 2018 ends with Saba sitting upon a throne of his own making. —Donna-Claire Chesman

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

But you're forgetting that Kanye produced the whole Nas thing.. the way I see it, it's just a Kanye beat/leftover tape with Nas cruising on autopilot throughout the whole thing. On "Cops Shot the Kid", "Bonjour" and "White Label" his presence is lazy and uninspired so I just tune him out.

Oh, the beats are great.
I actually think they’re the best part. And “Cops Shot the Kid” is one of my favorite beats of the year. Nas just sucks on that thing. I don’t see it as an equal project to Ye, is all.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

DJBooth names Saba's "Care for Me" best hip-hop/R&B AOTY

Yeah, thought of you when I read this.

I’ll try the thing again, but when you say it’s the album you wish Chance had made, I can’t relate. Acid Rap is amazing and Coloring Book is like a 7/10 minimum. More if I’m in the mood.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

Yeah, thought of you when I read this.

I’ll try the thing again, but when you say it’s the album you wish Chance had made, I can’t relate. Acid Rap is amazing and Coloring Book is like a 7/10 minimum. More if I’m in the mood.

Acid Rap is one of the best "rise to fame" projects of the decade.. along with ASAP Rocky's "LiveLoveASAP", Kendrick's "Section 80" and Frank Ocean's "Nostalgia Ultra".


Coloring Book is.. good, but not quite the classic I thought Chance would make. The super happy sounding stuff require a certain mood and at this point I'm a bit tired of that style he developed and find it a bit contrived. And he wasn't really rapping his ass off like he did on Acid Rap.


Care for Me is similar to "untitled unmastered" in a sense, intense rapping with beautiful jazzy instrumentation.. Saba is definitely a big Kendrick fan.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by louder

I'm the opposite.. as time goes on, I find it more and more difficult to enjoy non hip hop, even bands I admired like Dinosaur Jr and the likes.

Originally Posted by Severian

Yeah, guitar rock is hard to fuck with when nobody’s doing it worth a shit in any new or inventive ways.

But I'm curious: is this what you meant louder? You don't enjoy non-hip hop because wheels aren't being reinvented? Or did you just mean you tend to get more out of the genre of hiphop for whatever reason (the seriousness of purpose, the funky grooves, the tonal quality of rappers vs singers etc.)?

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

But I'm curious: is this what you meant louder? You don't enjoy non-hip hop because wheels aren't being reinvented? Or did you just mean you tend to get more out of the genre of hiphop for whatever reason (the seriousness of purpose, the funky grooves, the tonal quality of rappers vs singers etc.)?

Well, *I* meant that other genres are more musically interesting, but... you asked louder so

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

Acid Rap is one of the best "rise to fame" projects of the decade.. along with ASAP Rocky's "LiveLoveASAP", Kendrick's "Section 80" and Frank Ocean's "Nostalgia Ultra".


Coloring Book is.. good, but not quite the classic I thought Chance would make. The super happy sounding stuff require a certain mood and at this point I'm a bit tired of that style he developed and find it a bit contrived. And he wasn't really rapping his ass off like he did on Acid Rap.


Care for Me is similar to "untitled unmastered" in a sense, intense rapping with beautiful jazzy instrumentation.. Saba is definitely a big Kendrick fan.

At first, as you remember, with Coloring Book, I was like, “Whoah!” Then I was like “ughhhh.” But I acrually revisited its sappier songs this year, and they’re quite sad. Like “Smoke Break” and “Same Drugs.” Killer stuff, and hard to listen to.

But yeah, he doesn’t rap his ass off and I know for a fact that he can. But “Coloring Book” was like the answer to the question, “What would happen if you took the TLOP concept of gospel-driven rap and removed all the experimental eccentricities and made it borderline unbearable at times?”

Still.. the songs are good.
I think Acid Rap is better than Section.80, even though it has nothing as good as “Fuck Your Ethnicity” or “HiiiPower.” I’d like to see him make another album with that sound, but ... maybe have it be an album this time?